Transparency
protects animals.
Animal cruelty is a felony in all 50 U.S. states. Convictions are recorded across thousands of county courts and a small number of official registries — leaving shelters, rescues and fostering families without a single place to check prospective adopters.
Paws on Record aggregates convictions from public government registries (Tennessee TBI, Henrico County VA, Suffolk County NY), documented appellate records at the Michigan State University Animal Legal & Historical Center (Texas, California, Florida and more), and publicly reported news coverage — each record linked to its source so you can verify independently.
Know of a conviction
that's not in here?
Most animal-cruelty convictions never make national news, and the public registries we pull from (Tennessee TBI, Suffolk NY SPCA, Henrico VA) cover only a fraction of the country. If you've seen a conviction reported locally, paste the source here — a human reviewer will verify and add it.
All tips are rate-limited by IP and require a source link. We do not add unverified allegations — only convictions or guilty pleas documented in a court filing or major news source.
Where we have records
Each square is a U.S. state, positioned roughly where it sits on the map. Darker = more convicted records. Light squares are gaps — let us know if you have leads.
Have a documented case we missed? Submit a tip on the About page — we verify every submission against a primary source before publishing.